


Finding

by pinkolifant



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, unbetaed madness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 09:04:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10331180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkolifant/pseuds/pinkolifant
Summary: After bread riot, Sandor goes looking for his horse.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The creative idea to exploit what Sandor might think about when looking for his horse after the bread riot belongs to - sassyeggs.

 

**Finding**

He had to find that horse.

On the day he killed Gregor, he would need that animal. The Hound might ride his brother down… How sweet it would be! The cracking of ribs and skull. His joy would know no limits.

Or he might need to leave in haste afterwards. The gnats on the king’s Small Council might advise Joff to judge his Hound for _his_ crime _,_ ignoring Gregor’s transgressions. Joff would probably deny them the pleasure for the love of his dog. But since the little shit found beheadings amusing, it was better not to tempt him. The Hound’s head wasn’t pretty nor anointed, but he wanted it on his shoulders.

The riot was dwindling, the poor gnats returning to their dirty wives and children.

He should have _killed_ Gregor on the Hand’s tourney, instead of bowing to Robert’s orders and stopping to fight him. It was the perfect opportunity. It gnawed him now that with Robert dead it might never come back.

Gregor wouldn’t have backed off if the odds were in his favour. But the king had many men, and Gregor was only one rabid dog among them.

And Sandor didn’t find it in himself to disrespect the king for the sake of his revenge.

 _There will be another opportunity,_ he told himself doggedly.

For a start, he would find that horse.

Despite his determination, all he saw were people, treading through the muddy street, ruined by the horses’ hooves and the feet of the crowd gone wild in the riot. Women covered in grime, and dirty, snotty children holding their skirts, began returning home from holes in which they had lay hidden when things went truly out of hand.

He had been fortunate to be close to the girl.

No, _she_ had been fortunate.

Not that she knew how lucky she was to have him near.

Truth be told, she didn’t know anything at all.

In all his years in the capital, the Hound had never encountered such monumental, unfeigned stupidity.

He spotted a large black rump moving in the direction of the buggering river. He ran, and found nothing. Only more snotty children.

_Stupid girl._

A man had pulled her off her horse, smelling of garlic. Her face was bleeding. Was it her lip? Sandor’s guts twisted as if he had eaten maggots. The maester would have seen to the girl’s cut by now.

Joff’s bird had to remain pretty.

Riverside was an anthouse of men and beasts, fleeing the confines of the city after the violent upheaval. Several riderless horses roamed in the surroundings, but none of them was Stranger.

Resigned, the Hound returned towards the Red Keep. At one of the last crossroads before arriving at the pink walls of the royal castle, he heard neighing, and an indignant human scream.

“Stranger!” he called with anticipation, following his ears.

An old man covered a bleeding nose with both hands in a dark alley. The Hound didn’t need a maester chain to know that a part of it had been beaten off.

“This will teach you not to steal,” he scorned Stranger’s victim, grabbing his horse’s reins. “Come on, boy.”

“Help me!” the old man sobbed. “Have you no heart?”

“No,” the Hound agreed wholeheartedly, riding off. The man would live. Nothing could be done for his nose.

Back in the castle, he was… bored.

Drinking held no appeal. Whoring even less.

His horse was safe and Gregor was burning the riverlands. He couldn’t kill him today.

Battle would come to the city soon. _There’ll be plenty of men to kill._ Maybe it would give him joy.

But the Imp was planning something special… the little gargoyle had been asking questions about the Mad King’s stocks of wildfire.

Those rumours were disconcerting.

_It’s nothing. Just the piss of the alchemists._

But the piss could be set ablaze, according to stories, just like the houses of the poor near the city walls; burned down to facilitate the defence against Stannis.

King’s Landing smelled of smoke and ashes. The flavour of it was in the Hound’s mouth.

If he hadn’t been _near,_ the stupid girl’s mouth would know a taste of garlic by now in a dark alley. Her mangled body would probably never be found.

Cold sweat beaded under his armour. His hairs were on edge.

He was afraid. Of what he wanted.

From a _child._

Who walked towards him, not looking childlike at all, pale and perfect, with her head down.

It was his own _stupid_ fault because he ended up near her chambers in the bloody castle, without consciously pondering where he was going or why, lost in his thoughts of killing Gregor and the coming battle.

“Going back out?” he asked sardonically. “To the joyful company of Joffrey’s beloved people? Didn’t you see enough of them for today?” He was blabbering nonsense and he knew it. The gates were guarded. She couldn’t go out.

 _Or could she?_ Fear that she somehow _could,_ and that she would surely come to harm if he wasn’t near when she ran away, paralysed him.

His entire angry world smelled of garlic.

Sansa halted in her steps. Her forehead wrinkled as she searched for a good lie to tell him.

He wished she would tell him the truth. Whatever it was. That she hated him. That she was grateful to him, for saving her today. That she...

“Where are you going?” she surprised him by asking.

He shrugged, not knowing the answer.

“You could…” she tilted her head on one side.

The cut on her lip was visible in the light of the nearby torch, scarring slowly.

It was nothing like his scars, but it was still one scar too much on her pretty face.

“You could accompany me,” she finished lamely.

“The lady wants a servant,” he murmured.

“The lady wants a true knight,” she countered.

He laughed maniacally. _How bloody stupid can you be?_

“But there are none,” she finished sadly. “It matters not. I suppose I shall… return to my… to my cage.”

On an impulse, he offered her his arm.

“Oh,” she sighed and he could swear she was blushing when she lowered her eyes. “I just… I assumed you’d walk behind.”

His arm dropped.

“How discourteous of me,” she admonished herself.

He fell behind her. “Your cage is that way,” he pointed out.

“Oh,” she sighed again, not moving.

_Empty-headed._

“Did you…” she stuttered and looked afraid. “Did you find your horse?”

He nodded.

A cleverer girl would see how it was with him. Would promise him herself to take her away. And he would take _her_ and then break his promise, leaving her with nothing.

But this girl was so stupid that she didn’t even know what she wanted. What she could get from him, what he would do for her…

“I’m happy for you,” she said sincerely. “It would pain me if you lost your horse on my account. I know how it is to… to lose a pet.”

“Stranger is a warhorse,” he barked angrily, offended on behalf of his courser, “not a pet.”

“It’s similar,” she countered.

“Maybe,” he ceded, a little.

“My wolf… Lady was a wild animal,” she whispered. “Not a bird in a cage.”

“I know,” he retorted spontaneously.

“Do you?”

He could tell that she didn’t believe him. _Why all the buggering questions?_

He wished she stopped asking them, fearing the answers he might give her.

She positioned herself… as if she would take his arm now if he offered it again.

So he did, and she took it.

A lady couldn’t make the first step...

And it was the arm on his bad side. He had completely forgotten he should give her the other one. She always paid attention to walk on his _good_ side when he accompanied her to their beloved king. The next thing he would forget would be to comb his hair over his scars in her presence like a buggering fool.

Smile died on her lips when she approached the ruin of his face closer than she would have liked.

He took a torch in his free arm, trying to cast its light so that his bad side would be hidden in the darkness of the castle.

In vain, he could tell.

She was seeing it, frowning, then schooling her face into that lying calm he hated. Her face for the court.

Her soulless expression.

But her eyes… glittered, examining his, serious like the eyes of her dead father.

“Thank you,” she said, averting her eyes, obviously. “I was… I was looking for you. To thank you. Before I lost my courage to do so,” she sounded as if she couldn’t believe her own bravery.

“Well you found me,” he said, grinning.

“And you found your horse,” she replied jokingly. “It would seem that we both found something, my lord.”

She suddenly sounded very clever for a stupid girl.

She could make him do anything she wanted and he wouldn’t be able neither to name his price nor to make her pay for it.

Best if she didn’t know.


End file.
